Alright. Here I'm trying to list all items worth mentioning pre-raid. I will list the items slot-wise, and the order of which they come up hints which item I deem best. Oh, and all the credit of this list goes to myself and Utarius.
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First, some basic stats you need to know:
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Tanking:
Defense: This is a stat you need to decrease your chance of being crit. You need 25 Defense Skill to decrease your chance to be critically hit and hit by 1%. The 25 Defense Skill will also increase your chance to parry, dodge and block by 1%.
To get one Defense Skill you need 2.37 Defense Rating (at level 70 that is, at level 60 you need 1.5 defense rating for one defense skill). The cap for when you are un-crittable is 490 Defense Skill at level 70, since you always count bosses to be 3 levels higher than you. Since you've got a base skill of 350 defense you need another 140 skill to get there. That equals 332 defense rating. If your gear has that you can drop points out of Anticipation and put them somewhere you deem better.
Dodge: One of your main aviodance forms. It takes 19 dodge rating to get 1% dodge. It also takes 30 +agi to get 1% dodge.
Parry: Another main avoidance form. You need ~24 parry rating to get 1% parry.
Block Rating: One of your mitigation forms. A good note: Blocked attacks can not crush you. You need ~8 block rating for 1% block. While pure avoidance is better, this is certainly not something you should avoid.
Block Value: A big contribution to your TPS (Threat Per Second), since Shield Slam largely scales with this stat. Should be sought after, and prioritized based on how much of the other stats you've already got.
Agi: A pretty good tanking stat. You gain TPS from the +crit. 1 point of agi grants 2 points of armour. You also get 1% dodge chance for 30 agi.
Hit: A great contribution to your TPS. Almost all your abilities can miss, and there by you see the necissity of this ability. You can negate this by getting +5% hit (for mobs your lvl) and up to +8.6% hit (for bosses, which are assumed 3 lvls above you). Note: If you stack up on +hit it will not make your opponent avoid you less. Avoidance is part of the defence skill, and only weapon skill can eliminate that.
Str: Another good boost to your TPS. You get 2 AP from 1 str. You also get 0.05 Block value from 1 str (meaning you get 1 block value from 20 str). Because of the rather small contribution of block per str it is (just like +block rating) not worth it to stack up on, but shouldn't be avioded. It is very much more efficient to stack up on Block Value than on Str.
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DPS:
Crit: A nice DPS multiplyer. 22 Crit Rating grants 1% Crit Chance.
Hit: One of your main stats as a DW warrior. You need 16 Hit Rating to get 1% Chance to Hit.
Dual Wielders have a base miss rate of 24%. Two-Hand Wielders have a base miss rate of 9%. One-Hand Wielders with no weapon in the Off-Hand have a base miss rate of 5%.
All Special abilities have a base miss rate of 5%. So it's best to have +Hit even if you're 2h:ing/tanking.
Str: Greatly benefits to any ability involving weapon dmg, and evern more so the the Blood Thirst ability. 1 point of str grants 2 points of AP. Str also benefits from buffs such as Blessing of Kings (where you get 2.2 AP from one str, instead of 2), where as +AP doesn't.
AP: Benefits in the same way +str do, although +str is twise as effective.
Agi: Should neither be sought for nor avoided. You benefit more from +crit and +str than from +agi. Still, if an item has it you can only rejoyce. 33 agi grats 1% crit. 1 agi = 0.66% Crit Rating.
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Informative posts:
Tanking gear list.
DW gear list.
2h gear list.
Gems and enchants list.
Stat and build recommendations.
SkibumOnShiva's guide to tanking gear via questing only.
PS. I hope it's not a problem that I've linked items and quests to a different site. If it is: let me know, and I'll fix it.
Edit: Finished Gems section, started on Enchants section.
Edited, Jul 13th 2007 3:51pm by Darqflame
Edited, Feb 1st 2008 1:45pm by Xordon